To Fail While Daring Greatly
by Lord Cellytron
Summary: "You know, this all went down a lot differently in my head," Blaine said. Missing scene for 3x11 "Michael", most assuredly contains SPOILERS for same! Angst, fluff, Klaine, you know the drill.


**AN: Alright, so this is just one of many fics fueled by sheer fangirl enthusiasm post-ep. 3x11: "Michael". It takes place at the hospital, following The Slushie Heard Round the World. (Or should we call it "Slushiegate"?)**

**I love Klaine. I love dramatic sacrifices. I love heroic nonsense. So I loved this episode and I decided to do my take on what may have happened at the hospital, with swirling chaotic emotions and opiates and bad TV. And that smell. God, that smell.**

"You know, this all went down a lot differently in my head," Blaine said with a decided slur.

Kurt had to take a second to mentally process the sounds uttered by his drugged, bandaged boyfriend before they took coherent shape as real, English words.

When they did, however, his smirk came immediately.

"You had time for it to 'go down' in your head at all?" he asked, "Because it all happened in about one one-millionth of a second. If that."

"Oh, come on, are you kidding?" Blaine slurred again. "If that was one one-millionth of a second, then it was the longest one one of... millionth of a second... of my life-"

He couldn't finish the absurdly-worded sentence without cracking up (narcotic-induced euphoria, god it was beautiful), and Kurt joined him in light, bubbly laughter. The kind of desperately relieved laughter that only comes after a heavy bout of tears, and nourishes the entire freaking soul with each giggling gasp.

"God, talking's hard," Blaine snorted. "Whatever. You know what I mean. Even if I don't."

"I seem to, don't I?" Kurt said softly. "We really must be the Wonder Twins."

Blaine smiled again, and then came a sudden, unexpected flinch of pain. One he tried to downplay, one which was, by its very nature, muted by the flow of Vicodin, but one which still managed to take his breath away.

"Shit," Blaine hissed, squeezing his good eye shut. "Shit, shit, shit, ow..."

And that beautiful laughter from a few short seconds ago seemed like a distant memory as both boys returned to harsh, cold reality. The reality where they were sitting in THAT ER at THAT hospital, with all of THOSE sounds and THOSE smells. That beeping. Always with that damn beeping.

And the pain.

Kurt immediately grabbed Blaine's hand with both of his, making soothing little nonsense sounds. For all the good that did.

God, that he could take some of that pain for himself. That he could take ALL of that pain for himself!

Or back for himself, as it would have been his to begin with if Blaine hadn't done what he had done.

A surge of fury. A surge of seriously dangerous fury, and Kurt felt his face reddening.

But now was not the time.

No, no, no, now was not the time, but he had to do something, he had to do something or he would go insane, he would lose it, he would absolutely lose it if he didn't do something-

Yes! Something he could do! A hospital! Doctors! Drugs! He could do something-

"Blaine," he said huskily, "Honey, let me get someone."

Blaine shook his head as he squeezed Kurt's hand. Hard.

"No, no, no, I'm fine!"

"You are not fine, Blaine! Let me get someone-"

"No! It's fine! Kurt, it's fine. Don't. It's fine. Just... just... don't leave."

Kurt exhaled sharply.

"I'm... I'm not *leaving*. I am not leaving. I'm not going anywhere."

Blaine sighed.

"I know. But just..." he waved into the air ineffectually.

"What is it?"

Another sigh.

"I'm just gonna come right out and say it, Kurt. I'm scared out of my mind right now. I'm completely freaking out. I shouldn't be, I know everything's okay, but I'm freaking out."

"Why?" Kurt asked, his mouth dry. "What is it?"

Blaine turned his one good eye toward Kurt and shrugged weakly.

"I don't know," he said. "Nothing? Everything? God, Kurt, shit just doesn't make sense right now. I don't- god, I just really don't like hospitals."

A humorless laugh out of Kurt, and Blaine turned toward him in surprise.

"...Well, that's... yet another thing we have in common, isn't it," Kurt whispered.

Blaine's gaze became pained.

"Yep," he sighed.

And so Kurt was calm. Or he would be calm. Blaine needed him, so damn it, he would try to be calm.

"Okay."

Kurt leaned over the side of the bed and lay his head down on the mattress, gazing up into Blaine's deep brown eyes(-eye. Fuck), and he tried to project as much calm as he could.

Calm calm calm calm.

Distraction!

Perfect!

"So," he said with a soft smile, his entire voice changing into a teasing, lilting soprano, "You said you saw this all going down differently in your head. What happened in your head, Blaine Anderson?"

Blaine immediately seemed to trade his apprehension for red-faced embarrassment. He laughed.

"Oh, uh, crap, I was kinda hoping you forgot I said that. No, I shouldn't tell you. It's so dumb."

"No! Why? What's dumb about it?" Kurt said with a bit of a whine.

"Ah, I don't know..."

"Oh, come on..."

Kurt poked Blaine in the sensitive part of his hip, provoking a ticklish little jump from the dark-haired boy.

"Dammit, Kurt! We're in public!" Blaine hissed.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry," Kurt whispered. He did a fantastic job of hiding a half-sadistic grin. "But I want to hear. I won't think it's dumb. I promise."

Blaine bit his lip and sighed.

"I mean... it's so stupid."

"Come on. I'm sure it's not stupid."

Another sigh.

"Well... okay. Okay, so, it's just a damn slushie, right? Or at least, it was supposed to be."

"Right," Kurt said.

"So I was going to... you know, save you from the big bad slushie. I was gonna be your, like, big hero and everything."

"You mean, like you did, and like you are?" Kurt asked matter-of-factly.

A deep red blush, and Blaine shrugged.

"Come on. So, then you were going to take me off to the bathroom and, you know... clean me up. Water, soap, paper towels, the whole nine. You were gonna have little... bits of red ice in your hair, you know, that ricocheted off of me. God, it was gonna be so dramatic."

Kurt instinctively touched his head, and noted with awe that not a single fleck of slushie had hit his hair. Or his clothes. Or really any part of him.

God.

Blaine continued,

"I was going to have it all dripping down into my shirt and into my pants."

"Well well well," Kurt said, a little dreamily.

"You were gonna, you know, kiss my nonexistent owwies all better."

Kurt opened his mouth to speak, but Blaine continued,

"And halfway through, it was like this epiphany was gonna strike us both. And we were gonna laugh, then, over how stupid all of this is. We were gonna laugh, Kurt! Over all this ridiculous high school drama. All of it. All the slushies, all the fights, all the bullying... None of it matters, none of it ever mattered! Because in six months, you are gonna be out of this shithole. You're gonna be at NYADA and all of these horrible, miserable memories are going to be so far behind you, they're never gonna hurt you again. We were gonna laugh as you cleaned the corn syrup out of my eyes. We were gonna laugh all the crap that's ever happened to us... right down the drain."

The room seemed to pulse in time to Kurt's rapid heartbeat, and he closed his eyes.

Well, that was a distraction, but it was a heartbreaking one.

"You... had time to picture all of that?" he asked softly.

"Oh, I had time to picture camera angles and lighting, too. Mostly tight shots in late afternoon sunlight."

"God, Blaine..." Kurt's voice cracked. He opened his eyes again. The room continued to pulse, clearly that was a problem which wouldn't go away. He'd deal with it.

"Yeah. You know. It was actually really nice. Very theatrical," Blaine smirked. "Kind of... sucks that it didn't turn out that way."

Kurt snuggled up to Blaine's side, lowering his massive blue eyes as he tried to make words of any kind come.

Blaine. All silliness and goofiness and good intentions, all big brown eyes and curly black hair and ridiculous bowties. His Blaine, his beautiful, flawed Blaine who had had silly, childish daydreams of silly, childish heroism, but who was able to follow them up with real action. Blaine who somehow had not so much as a care for his own safety when it came to the welfare of the boy that he loved.

Blaine, who acted in one one-millionth of a second to protect Kurt from what he thought was a simple slushie, something they'd laugh about later. And he now lay in bed with god only knew what type of injury.

Blaine who took Kurt's pain, right in the face, with eyes wide open, and had silly, childish daydreams of washing both of their pain down the sink, in beautiful late afternoon sunlight.

As if it could ever be that easy.

Stupid, idealistic puppy dog Blaine.

Kurt loved him so much he felt as if his heart was going to burst.

The boys remained silent for far too long. That damn beeping seemed to grow louder, and Kurt opened his mouth to break the silence with something, anything, but he was interrupted by Blaine's almost inaudible,

"I am so sorry, Kurt."

Kurt shifted positions so he was facing Blaine square in the face with his head in his hands. He frowned.

"Now what could you possibly have to be sorry for?" he asked.

Blaine shot him a confused look.

"Well... Sebastian? Talking to him behind your back? Accidentally giving him our setlist? This entire thing? Every bit of this is my fault. I never should have trusted him."

Kurt's eyes were wide and deceptively pale under the flourescent lights. A moment or two passed before he shook his head slowly.

"Blaine," he said in a sharp tone, "Don't you dare apologize for Sebastian. Don't you dare."

Blaine sighed angrily.

"I'm not. It's just... Of all the people! Of all the people to pull something like this. I used to be able to trust the Warblers with my life. With everything! We both did! You were every bit as much a Warbler as I was. Those guys... god, you know? How could they even-even think of-"

"It's not the Warblers, Blaine. It is Sebastian. Full stop."

"Yeah... I know," Blaine growled. "Now," he added roughly.

"But, you know... while I may not have agreed with your decision to... befriend him," Kurt spat the word "befriend" as though it was a foul-tasting bug, "You thought he was someone you could at least kind of trust. An honorable competitor, like you were. Right?"

Blaine scoffed.

"Yeah. Won't make that mistake again."

Kurt nodded soberly.

"Yeah," he echoed.

Blaine made a bizarre, painful little noise.

"God," he said in a strangled voice, suddenly thick with anger, "Did you see the look on his face? Did you see it?"

Kurt could only nod again.

"Yeah. Yeah, I did. He... he really wanted to hurt me," Kurt said in a husky voice. "He really would have hurt me, if-"

Blaine interrupted,

"He looked crazy. Just... crazy. God! Did he always look like that? Did I just not see it?"

"Blaine."

"How could I have been so stupid?"

"Blaine."

"God, Kurt, none of this ever would have happened if I just hadn't gotten that stupid idea. Take it to the streets. What the hell was I-"

"Blaine!" Kurt was leaning completely over Blaine's bedside now, hands on the younger boy's shoulders, eyes flashing and locked on Blaine's.

A moment passed.

That damn beeping.

"...What?" Blaine asked, his mouth dry.

Kurt licked his lips; his mouth was dry, too. Must have been that damn canned air.

Another moment, and then Kurt pressed his injured boyfriend into a tender, careful kiss, in order to shut them both up for a second and reset his own spiralling thoughts.

It almost worked. Half-worked, really. It shut them both up, but in doing so, his mind flooded with more thoughts than before. Painful ones. Angry ones.

An involuntary gasp of anger.

No, no, no, no, no, not now. Not now. Not now. Not-

They broke apart. Neither spoke for a moment.

"Well... thanks, I needed that?" Blaine finally said, with a smirk. "Assuming that was your version of 'get a hold of yourself, man!'"

Kurt snorted and gave a bit of what he hoped was a convincing head toss.

"Something on that order."

"It worked."

Kurt moved his right hand to Blaine's unmarked cheek, stroking the soft skin with his thumb. The snow white bandages on Blaine's left stood out in stark contrast to his flesh tone, and Kurt longed to touch the injured area, to caress it, to, indeed, kiss it all better.

He couldn't.

He couldn't do a damn thing.

He couldn't do a damn thing except keep calm somehow. That was sure working out well.

He had to somehow find words. A task which was, for some reason, next to impossible.

Kurt Hummel, without words. It was almost hilarious.

Well, one step down from hilarious.

"It's ridiculous," he murmured. "You and I. We've known each other how long? We've been through so much. And look at me. I can't even just... look my stupid, heroic boyfriend in the eye, and very simply just... thank him."

He felt Blaine stiffen underneath him, and he gave his boyfriend a quizzical look.

"Kurt..." Blaine almost whined. That same old blush was back. "Come on."

"What?"

"No, don't... Don't thank me, babe, come on."

"Blaine!"

"Kurt!"

"Blaine!"

"Come on, I'm serious! I'm serious. Don't thank me. I got you into this mess."

"So we have established. At length. And you got me out of it. Spectacularly, I may add."

Keep it light. Keep it light.

"You should be pissed at me."

Kurt's eyes flashed involuntarily.

Shit.

"I am pissed at you!"

And it was out.

Shit shit shit shit shit, this was going to be messy, this was going to be catastrophic-

The kicked puppy look on Blaine's face, that should have been enough to stop him, but it wasn't. This was going to be apocalyptic-

"I am pissed at you, Blaine! God! Of course I'm pissed! I'm pissed that you took the whole thing without giving me any choice in the matter! I'm furious that all of this pain you're in right now was supposed to be mine, and all I can do is sit here and watch. I can't take back that pain. After what you did for me, I can't do a damn thing for you! I mean, how is that fair, Blaine? How is that even remotely fair?"

Blaine didn't have time to reply.

Kurt continued,

"I'm pissed that you're so... damn selfless and so damn idealistic. Despite everything that has happened to you and to me and to us, you still believe in the inherent goodness of people in this world. Somehow. And... I'm so pissed that you were wrong, Blaine. I'm so, so pissed that you had to learn that you were wrong the hard way. Again."

A long moment of silence Or almost-silence. That damn beeping.

"Because you were wrong, Blaine. You were so wrong. We'll never be able to put this shit behind us. We're never going to be able to forget our pain. And this ridiculous high school drama is never going to end, because you and I, Blaine, we're never really going to be out of high school. Never completely. You know why? Because no one ever leaves high school. Those scars... everyone has them, everyone has given them. And they don't go away. Ever. They can't. They hurt too damn much-"

Without a word, Blaine gingerly wrapped his arms around Kurt. The two boys physically fit each other like hand and glove, and Kurt buried his face in Blaine's chest, letting himself cry. Sob was more like it. Messy, disgusting sobbing.

Damn Blaine. Always the strong one. Always the protector. Always the damn rock. Despite everything.

"Kurt, baby, it's okay," Blaine was saying. "It's okay. It's okay..."

"Blaine, this can never happen again!" Kurt said inbetween gasping sobs. "You can't ever do anything like this again. Not for me, not for anyone. I can't stand it."

"Well, the odds of this ever happening again are pretty slim, let's be real," Blaine said. "I mean, it must have just about killed Sebastian to have to set foot inside a convenience store once. He's certainly not going to disgrace himself like that a second time."

Kurt burst into more of that wonderfully teary, light bubbly laughter.

"Excellent point," he admitted.

"I love you so much, Kurt," Blaine said. He nuzzled Kurt's still-perfect hair with his good cheek. "God, I love you so much."

"I love you too," Kurt wailed. "I've never loved anyone like-"

"I know. I know. Me too."

"What the hell are we going to do, Blaine? What the hell are we going to do?"

"What the hell can we do, Kurt? They won. We lost." Blaine sighed. "This went down so much differently in my head."

**FIN(n?)**

**...Well, downer ending is downer. I realize I walk a fine line between douchebag and... less of a douchebag by admitting this, but I kind of teared up while writing this last part. **

**The resolution, of course (as it was) came in the actual episode. Review if you are so inclined. Maybe I'll actually write another fic sometime in the next two years. *grin***


End file.
